***On Twitter @OfficialRVGA and on YouTube @ http://www.youtube.com/user/OfficialRVGA*** Welcome to the Retro Video Game Addict's Official blog page! Here you will be able to tap into the mind of a man who knows, loves, and enjoys his retro/classic video games. Everything from the Atari 2600 to the Nintendo 64 is covered here, so strap yourself in for a fun ride down memory lane, and don't say that you weren't warned before hand. Please, enjoy your stay and keep your kids off my lawn.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

The Retro Video Game Addict reviews: The Legend of Zelda for the NES!

Alright boys and girls, it's finally
time for me to sit down and do a review of the king of the hill when
it comes to adventure games on the NES. That's right, this is my
official review of The Legend of Zelda!

I think everyone agrees that The
Legend of Zelda is one of the best games for the Nintendo
Entertainment System and one of the best video games ever created.
It's one of those timeless masterpieces that people still get the
urge to play some 25 years later and it's definitely a game that
remained popular throughout the life of the NES. See, many games come
out for modern gaming consoles and are lost to time and forgotten
about less than 6 months later because the modern gamer has become so
fickle that they can't figure out what it is they want to play. A new
game comes out and then interest in whatever they were enjoying
previously comes to an abrupt end and the game is cast aside and
never touched again, if not traded away (I hate that). These kinds of
things didn't happen much during the NES day's and the popularity of
the original Zelda lasted well into the early 90's, some 4-6 years
after the title hit stateside. That's a remarkable feat, especially
since Sega had two gaming machines on the market, Nintendo had it's
Gameboy, and Turbo Grafix had their TG-16 console readily available.

What The Legend of Zelda did upon
release was refine a genre that heavily needed it. But the game
didn't have an easy time upon it's release, oh no, Nintendo of
America almost canned it because they believe that it may be too hard
of a game for an American audience. That's right, The Legend of Zelda
almost never came out in the United States! What Nintendo of America
did was hold sessions with study groups and allowed players to spend
time with the game, after the sessions were over the powers that be
asked the members of the groups what they thought of the game. It was
almost unanimous that the players didn't like The Legend of Zelda
with multiple people claiming the game was “shit”. Well,
regardless of the study sessions the game eventually saw release and
went on to become one of the NES' top selling (and top rated) titles.

The premise of the game was fairly
simple: A hero dungeon crawled his way through multiple labyrinths in

hopes of finding pieces of a legendary triforce in order to save the
kingdom of Hyrule. And the gameplay mimicked the story. Link, our
timeless hero, scoured 9 different dungeons as he collected helpful
items and pieces of the triforce before meeting an enemy named Ganon
in a final epic encounter. The land of Hyrule was littered with
surprises and easter eggs that left the gamer planting bombs to
uncover hidden caves, lighting trees on fire to find hidden temples,
and using the gadgets they've found along the way to find secret
hearts and other fun prizes. There was truly nothing like this game
at the time and the player was rewarded handsomely if they uncovered
these special secrets, which were literally all over the map. For the
completion mongers out there it can be quite a daunting task trying
to discover and uncover all of the secrets that Zelda has to offer,
but it can be fun and I've spoken with many who have attained this
feat.

The game itself isn't overly hard
at first with the first 2 or 3 dungeons being easily beatable if
you're a seasoned gamer, but once you hit the 4th dungeon
and beyond the game gets difficult. You find yourself inside of rooms
with statues shooting fire at you while you try to kill 6 or 7
enemies floating around the room, it can get pretty infuriating
trying to deal with the amount of stuff the game throws at you at one
time. Also, if you haven't played the game since you originally owned
it or if you're tackling Zelda for the first time, you'll notice that
many tips they give you are very cryptic and it's almost impossible
to navigate and find every dungeon without some kind of help from a
guide. This is classic Nintendo and something I've come to expect
from many games in the NES library and it often makes me wonder how I
figured all this stuff out when I was younger. Back then if you
didn't subscribe to the Nintendo Power magazine or have a slew of
friends who were playing the same games as you than finding things
was heavily trial and error based before the days of the internet.

While I've played The Legend of
Zelda back in it's heyday, I was more of a Zelda II: The Adventures
of Link fan and owned that game instead of the original. I would rent
Zelda from time to time and I always got to play it at friends houses
and whatnot, but I wouldn't go on to fully own the game until 1995
when I bought

it along with a refurbished NES from FUNCOLAND one day
in what I believe was March. Sadly, I had sold all my NES stuff to a
flea market a couple of years before hand and was starting out from
scratch again with the NES and decided to get some games that I've
either never owned or have never even played. I used Game Genie and
spent hours bombing my way through the game and eventually beat it,
which gave me an inner feeling of joy and happiness that I couldn't
even begin to explain. I beat the game again the following year after
a friend of mine and I created a mini “game room” out of my
bedroom, We decided to play the game and take turns as we progressed.
We had a blast trading off the controller on certain dungeons until
we met up with Ganon, in which I personally had the pleasure of
taking him down. Fond memories, indeed. I beat the game for a third
time again in 2005 and then again just recently, which the most
recent time being probably the most difficult since I didn't use Game
Genie right away and waited until late in the game to do so. But no
matter how many times I revisit The Legend of Zelda I always enjoy my
time with it and am forever amazed at how fun it is to play.

Despite the game being a classic I
do have a few gripes with it. First off, the music. Yeah, I know, the
games soundtrack is considered to be one of the best in video game
history, and believe me it is, but sometimes the dungeon theme can
get a bit repetitive and after an extended play the overworld theme
can drone on a bit too. I love both themes quite a bit, so don't get
me wrong, but the overworld theme starts to wear on you when it
restarts over and over after bouncing in and out of hidden caves and
the such. But even with that said, I can't deny that Zelda has some
of the best and most recognizable music in video game history.

My second complaint would be the
sheer difficulty later on in the game. Whether it's hidden rooms that
an only be accessed by sheer luck or sections of a dungeons that have
way too much going on at one time, this game is no joke as you
progress and should be played cautiously. But challenge can be fun
and if you choose to go in without the help of Game Genie than be
warned that it's not going to be a cake walk, but most reading this
know that by now anyhow. But despite it's difficulty it's a blast to
play and the fun outshines the

hardship and the game is an absolute
joy to play thanks to it's wonderful control, fun soundtrack,
interesting enemies, familiar world, and intense hurdles.

I'm sure about 90% of those
reading this blog have already played this game and if you're a game
collector than you no doubt own it, but for those who have not had
the chance to play this timeless classic I urge you do go give it a
try. There is lot's to be said about retro gaming and this game is
one of the reasons the hobby is as big as it is, so what do you have
to lose? You've got so many different options to play it too whether
it be owning the original cart, playing it on the Nintendo Virtual
Console, or by playing it on an emulator, but either which rout you
choose you'll no doubt leave the kingdom of Hyrule with a smile on
your face. That I can guarantee.

2 comments:

I commented before on this posts I just didn't do it the right way you know trough phones is ass lol any ways well I have to say zelda is one of my favorite games of all time I have on the wii as NES ROM DL, RVGA! here is simply logical and awesome pointing all the facts and also making me play this game again and discover all secrets,,,,wow what i refresh!!

No one can ignore that this game set the template for not only every Zelda game that followed, but also every action RPG that followed. Its crazy to imagine teh video game landscape had Zelda not become a thing!

As Dan Houser says : Anyone who makes games who says they’ve not borrowed something from Mario or Zelda is lying